Very Bad Economy Slows Illegal Immigration to Utah

The Salt Lake Tribune
November 20, 2011
By Lee Davidson

While the illegal immigration debate flared in Utah the past few years, new Census Bureau estimates suggest that illegal immigration here slowed greatly.

Based on surveys of residents who lived in Utah in 2010 -- both legal and illegal -- the Census estimates about 15,610 of them immigrated here from 2008 through 2010.

That was down from the 25,422 it estimates immigrated here from 2005 through 2007 -- for a 39 percent drop between those two three-year periods.

That is based on a Salt Lake Tribune analysis of data contained in a Census brief released Thursday entitled, "The Newly Arrived Foreign-born Population of the United States: 2010." It used data from the American Community Survey.

"Immigration -- both international and national -- is way down, way down," said Pam Perlich, a research economist at the University of Utah.

Many people who came to Utah for jobs over the past decade were attracted here to work in home construction and related industries, said Perlich. "That sector has been totally devastated and mostly wiped-out by the recession."

Archie Archuleta isn't surprised.

The president of the Utah Coalition of La Raza believes illegal immigration has actually reversed among Mexicans and many have returned home.

Archuleta and Perlich see the same major reasons for the drop: the recession destroying jobs, the heated local debate about illegal immigration and an improving economy and opportunities in Mexico, homeland of many of the foreign immigrants to Utah.

"Latinos and probably most other foreign people are heavily unemployed," said Archuleta.

"So, if you can't make a living, and then you add to it the ugly responses of state legislators like ours in relationship to the illegals ... people not only are leaving but are not coming back."

He added that, "Mexico has begun to climb economically -- just barely.... So it's not surprising that illegal immigration is down."

Perlich agreed that Mexico recently has made strides in providing better education and opportunities for its citizens -- so many of its younger people no longer see a need to come north for a brighter future.

At the same time, she said, illegal immigration has become more dangerous from Mexico to Utah, not just because of increased attention on border enforcement but because of severe battles among the visious drug cartels.

But the economist cautions that survey data likely under-represent how many people have actually immigrated here.

"Anytime someone from the federal government asks questions about where people were born, there is going to be an under-representation of immigrants in these data. That's just a given, especially in places where the anti-immigrant sentiment is so loud and there is so much vitriol," said Perlich.

Ron Mortensen, cofounder of the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration, said such problems make it difficult to know how many illegal immigrants are in Utah, and whether their numbers are decreasing.

He said it sounds like they are, for the reasons outlined by Perlich and Archuleta along with recent E-Verify laws requiring employers to check legal status of new hires.

But he says that will not decrease the debate on illegal immigration. "It's obviously still a very serious problem," he said.

"As long as there are any illegal aliens, and it doesn't matter how many there are, there is high identify theft going on so that they can work."

Education and citizenship » Separate data released Thursday also show that foreign-born adults in the Salt Lake metro area have some of the lowest rates nationally for obtaining college degrees.

It said 19.6 percent of them age 25 and older have at least a bachelor's degree, which was lower than the 27 percent national average and made the Salt Lake City metro area rank sixth lowest among the nation's top 50 metro areas. Also, only 7.4 percent of them have science or engineering degrees, third lowest among the top 50 metro areas and well below the national average of 12.4 percent.

Perlich said among the reasons is that many immigrants who came to Utah were less educated people attracted to work in construction or service industries, and who came from rural areas in Mexico or who were refugees from war-torn areas.

But she notes that some of the most prestigious scientists in Utah are foreign-born immigrants, including Nobel Prize winner Mario Capecchi, who was born in Italy. She noted that universities and high-tech industries also bring in many highly educated foreign-born immigrants to Utah.

Of note, the 2010 American Community Survey estimates that 66.4 percent of Utah's foreign-born residents are not citizens, though it does address how many of them are here legally.

It estimates that 62.3 percent of Utah's foreign-born residents come from Latin America, 16.8 percent come from Asia, 11.1 percent from Europe, 3.7 percent from Pacific islands and 2.9 percent from Africa, with the rest coming from scattered other areas.

It also estimates that 50.3 percent of foreign-born residents speak English "less than very well." It said about 8.3 percent are unemployed. It also said the median household income in Utah for the foreign-born is $39,841 -- and 24 percent of the foreign-born live below the poverty level.

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